Pew pew!

[nendil]

Sigh... I could use a bit of ego-boost (or at least critique), guys.


When in doubt, use lasers cheap light beams!

Obviously still rough, but it's not too over-the-top is it........?

(For some reason, the lighting looks better when I flip the canvas to do the artist's check, but of course I can't keep that because THEIR HANDS WOULD BE ON THE WRONG SIDE HAHAHA. mutter mutter Wii version)

Comments

[torkell]

I like it! Some random comments:

Is Zelda meant to be holding the Ocarina behind or, or at her side? The angle of the arm looks like it should be behind her, but then the Ocarina itelf is partially obscured by her dress which implies it's at her side.

I like the light beams, but they don't seem to radiate out from a point source. I'd expect the sun to be in the top-left corner just outside the frame, but the light beams along the top don't line up with that. Plus they don't line up either side of Link's hat.

It might just be my laptop's screen (it's only 18-bit colour, not 24) but the lighting makes Navi almost invisible. Perhaps lighten the sky and darken Navi to add a bit of contrast?

/me flips back and forth between the two.
Hmm... it's hard to decide. I think I like the positions in the right-way-round one but the lighting in the flipped one.

[nendil.livejournal.com]

Good catches all! Those are actually things I know about but am kind of avoiding to fix (maybe until later) haha.

The arm - should be more by side than behind back. I'll work more on the shading to try and alleviate the Escher-esque thing.

Light beams - are just rough. I'm gonna see if I can mock up some Photoshop perspective guidelines when I get to that point.

Navi is just there as sort of a placeholder. She's got plenty of color-tweaking coming.

And yeah, what gives!? Why does lighting look better when it's the other way round??

[torkell]

For the arm, how about shifting the arm in a bit and the back of Zelda's dress out a little, so the arm is partially obscured by it?

Something else you could do with the light beams: add a slight rainbow across them (so the beam changes hue with distance from the sun). I've seen this effect in some photos I've taken, like in this one or this one (the red dot in the first and the blue blob in the second is lens flare - my digital camera has weird lens flare sometimes). Here's an older one from my gallery which has a much stronger example of this.

I really don't know why the lighting looks better from that side. Skimming through my photos I have a slight bias to having the sun on the left when it's in the frame so it can't be personal preference (though in most photos the decision is not mine but rather due to where everything is). Alt-tabbing between the two I find the eye drawn to different things in each, but always to the right-hand side of the painting. And the painting is in the left of the browser window... so it's probably just my eye being drawn towards the centre of the screen/window (which is slightly brighter too) more than anything else.

[nendil.livejournal.com]

THOSE ARE LENS FLARES AND I DO NOT CARE TO IMPOSE MORE OF AN ARTIFICIAL LENS UPON MY IMPRESSIONISTIC PAINTING GOOD SIR >:C

(also, extra effort. >P)

As for lighting, see our theory down below.

[torkell]

I always thought it was something else, not lens flare (as you can see it with the naked eye given the right conditions). I have a vague memory that diffraction is involved, but I'd have to do some digging to find out.

Hmm... the left-to-right stuff makes sense. You'll have to find someone who's grown up with right-to-left and ask them which they prefer.

[summercomfort]

The light thing might be because we're used to reading left to right, so the directionality is too predictable, but if it's coming from the right side, it really helps focus the picture because it balances out our left-to-right desires.

The cloud in the front looks super-small compared to Link's foot, but at the same time looks super-voluminous...

[nendil.livejournal.com]

Left-to-right is exactly what I was guessing, because that's what I thought I was experiencing too. I wonder if someone who reads right-to-left would view the lighting differently? Regardless, I'll be using that little subconscious trick on future compositions. :P

Will be getting to clouds later! I want them to look more close to the "camera" rather than right next to the foot. Will probably have to play with lighting contrast and focus and amount of details - things that would be a lot easier if I had a real lens. :P

Even easier if I were working IN THREE DEE